"Hit's up there she are!" Ransom Turner had been heard to whisper more than once.

"Hit certain are!" came with a nod of wise heads for answer.

Now it was the day before Florence's trial, and the school election as well. Ransom's men did not like the stinging remarks that came from the camp of Black Blevens.

"To-morrow's the trial," Ransom had said. "She's bound to be here. Go tell the boys to git up their rifles an' pistol guns an' come here at sunset."

This was said to a trusty henchman, who was away at once. In a small clearing a little way up the side of Big Black Mountain, a clearing completely surrounded by thickets of laurel and mountain ivy, the men were now straying in to drop silently down upon the gra.s.s.

A grim, silent group they were. Here was a lanky, long-bearded patriarch with a squirrel rifle that stood as tall as he, and here a boy of sixteen with a shiny modern rifle. Here were dark-bearded, middle-aged men with leather holsters buckled to their belts.

Conversation was all in whispers. One caught but fragments of it.

"Hit's whar she are."

"Hit's plumb quare about Bud Wax."

"Will they fight, you reckon?"

"Sure they will."

"Bud's been home once, I hearn tell. Hit's what Bud said that made Ransom so sartin about her bein' up thar."

So the whispering went on and more men straggled in as the shadows fell.

The people at the mouth of Laurel Branch had always resented the presence of their mysterious neighbors beyond the stone gateway. To a certain degree, also, they had feared them. Things mysterious inspire terror.

Tales of their strange doings had not grown smaller in their telling. The one-armed giant had become a veritable Cyclops. The beady-eyed stranger, who had once or twice been seen beyond the gates, was a man of strangely magic power. Such were the yarns that had been spun.

To-night, however, all these spells must vanish before the demand of cold steel. To-morrow was trial day and election day. Florence was needed. She must be at the mouth of Laurel Branch at sun up. They meant to bring her home. As soon as darkness fell these grim warriors of the hills meant to march past that stone gateway. If a sentry attempted to stop them he would be silenced. They would ask the release of their teacher, the one who had dared to stand and fight for their rights and the rights of their little ones. If they could secure her release by peaceable means they would do it. If it meant a fight, then a fight it would be.

And so, at the very hour when Florence trudged up the dark and shadowy trail, the clan was gathering.

As for Florence, as has been said, she had come to what appeared to be a sudden end of the trail. Before her was a towering wall of rocks.

But a well trodden path, beaten hard by the tread of hundreds who have pa.s.sed that way, does not end so abruptly. Like the current of a sunken river, it must always go somewhere. By a careful examination of her surroundings, the girl found that certain sandstone boulders that lay in jagged heaps to the right of her were worn smooth. These smooth spots, she reasoned, had been made by human feet.

At once, with a bound, she was away up this natural stairway. Up, up, up she climbed till her heart thumped wildly and her head whirled. Then, to her vast surprise, just as she reached the topmost pinnacle she came upon a black heap of coal and directly before her a coal shaft yawned.

"A coal mine!" she exclaimed in disgust, sinking down breathless upon a rock. "I have come all this way to find only a coal mine!"

In these mountains, this was no discovery. The mountains were full of coal. There was wanted only a railroad to make the country rich. But to think that she had come all this way in the hope of finding a way out, only to find there was nothing left but to retrace her steps and to choose between taking the desperate chance of slipping past that pacing guard in the dark or remaining quietly within the gates until something happened that would set her free.

"And that last," she groaned, "can never be. Never! I must escape! I must not miss my trial!"

In the frenzy of this resolve she sprang to her feet. But what was this?

The moment's rest and the cooling breeze had quieted her heart. She could think more clearly. This was no coal mine; could not be. A coal mine at the top of the mountain, a mile by trail from the nearest cabin? What folly! There were veins of coal lower down. She had seen them, and open coal mines, too, almost at the cabin's door. What, then, could this mean?

Here was coal, a coal vein, and an open drift, and yet it was not a mine.

Boldly she set a foot inside the dark opening. At once her foot shot from beneath her and she went sprawling. Only by a desperate clutching at the ragged rocks at her side was she prevented from gliding downward into a dark, unknown abyss.

Frightened, with hands lacerated by the sudden gripping of the rocks, and with heart beating wildly, she clung there panting until her head cooled and she realized that she was resting on a rocky step.

Drawing herself up, she found she was able to sit in a comfortable position and gaze about her. Just before her was utter darkness; behind her was the fading light of day.

Groping about in her pocket, she found a box of safety matches. Having lighted one of these she held it far out before her. At once her lips parted in an exclamation of surprise.

Before her, leading down, down, down, was a rude stairway cut in solid rock. On either side of the stairway were mine props, and back of these were black walls of coal.

It was all clear to her in an instant; not all, perhaps, but much. There were many just such veins of coal as this in the rockiest portions of the c.u.mberlands. She had heard of them. After the ages had pa.s.sed when coal had been deposited upon the surface of the earth and strata of earth and rocks piled upon them, there had come some tremendous disturbance of the earth's surface which had tilted rocks and coal deposits as well, and this was just such a vein.

There was nothing so strange about that, but it was strange to find this natural stairway leading downward to some regions unknown.

Just as her match flickered and went out her eyes caught the gleam of something white in a niche of the rock at her side. At once she was fumbling eagerly for another match.

To her consternation, in her excitement she let the box drop from her fingers.

b.u.mp, b.u.mp, b.u.mp, it went down the steps. For an instant her heart stood still. Had it gone on down? Was she left without a light? She thought it had stopped on the third step, but could not be sure.

Slowly, carefully, she felt her way over the damp and slippery steps. One step, two, three. She felt them over carefully. No matches. Her heart sank. One more step, a hasty groping in the dark, then a cry of joy. She gripped the box.

The next moment the place was alight with a reddish yellow glow, and the next instant, standing up, she was grasping the white object that had caught her eye. It was one of four tallow candles that lay in a rocky niche.

Holding her match to it, she had the joy of seeing its wick sputter, then flame up.

One moment she hesitated. Then, putting one of the candles in her pocket, and holding another well before her, with a firm and steady step she began the descent into the mysterious cavern.

CHAPTER XIII A TENSE SITUATION

It was mysterious, haunting, spectral. "Like going down into the tomb of some ancient Egyptian king," Florence told herself as, with candle held well out before her, and every step carefully poised, she made her way down the long stone stairway.

Black walls of coal were on either side. Before these the mine props stood like grim sentinels. The shadows of these, cast by the flickering light of the candle, appeared to take on life as they leaped, swaying and dancing, against the dusky walls.

Suddenly the girl caught her breath. A puff of air had all but extinguished her candle.

"And it came from below, not from above!" she breathed.

Scarcely had she made this astonishing discovery when she rounded a curve in the stairway and came in sight of a square of light. This distant illumination, the natural light of day, coming from the outside, seemed to beckon her on.

Then of a sudden it all came to her. "A tunnel!" she exclaimed. "Not the entrance to a mine, but a tunnel, a tunnel through this narrow peak of the mountain. Oh, joy! I've found the way out!"

In her eagerness she plunged down the stone stairway at a rate which threatened to send her pitching headlong. But sure-footed athlete that she was, she kept her balance and in another moment, panting, quite out of breath, she threw herself upon a huge flat rock that, lighted by the last rays of the setting sun, seemed a nugget of pure gold.

The scene her eyes gazed upon was of matchless beauty. The crests of the mountains, still beamed upon by the setting sun, glowed like so many domes of fire, while farther down the lower hillsides and valleys were shrouded in impenetrable shadows broken only by the silver thread of a stream that idled down a valley.

Suddenly the girl sprang to her feet. The whole thing had come to her in a flash. Wishing to be left alone, the mysterious people at the head of Laurel Branch had cut a pa.s.s through the solid mountain peak at a narrow place. They alone knew of it. Through this pa.s.s they carried the produce from their rough little farms to the coal mines far, far below. There they bartered them for shoes, salt, calico, and whatever their meager existence demanded.